If an error is possible, someone will make it. The designer must assume that all possible errors will occur and design so as to minimize the chance of error in the first place, or its effects once it gets made. Errors should be easy to detect, they should have minimal consequences, and, if possible, their effects should be reversible.

Introduction

This chapter of The Design of Everyday Things introduces and formalizes basic concepts and principles of design from observations of everyday objects. Why some objects, as simple as doors, please their users while others frustrate them.

The human mind is exquisitely tailored to make sense of the world. Give it the slightest clue and off it goes, providing explanation, rationalization, and understanding.

Introduction

This chapter of The Design of Everyday Things introduces and formalizes basic concepts and principles of design from observations of everyday objects. Why some objects, as simple as doors, please their users while others frustrate them.

One of the most annoying features of Markdown for me is the fact that newlines within a paragraph are automatically joined, which is one of the reasons why I like Github Flavored Markdown so much.

Ever since I setup my Octopress blog, I’ve wanted to use it with GFM. I searched around the web and found how to switch the markdown processor for Jekyll. I came across this post with instructions on switching to Maruku, which extends Markdown with the ability to create tables, footnotes, custom header ids, etc. I gave it a shot, but quickly realized that there’s no option to enable hard warp linebreaks. Back to searching.

Everyday tasks are not difficult because of their inherent complexity - they are difficult only because they require learning arbitrary relationships and mappings, and because they sometimes require precision in their execution.

Design is something that I’ve always wanted to learn, but never received a formal introduction to. It’s something I’ve always emulated but always fail to create. With Design and UX of products becoming increasingly important as a differentiator for startups and a means to establish a memorable brand image or memory of a product, it’s become even more imperative for me to learn Design.

Unfortunately, the Computer Science department does not offer any courses in Human-Computer Interaction. Through a series of considerations, weighing the benefit of completing my graduation requirements this semester and having the option of graduating early, versus not having to suffer through yet another class that fails to interest me and using my extra class slot for something of my own choosing. I decided to go with the latter, due to many factors I will not get into here. Regardless, I definitely think I’ve made the right choice.